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Thirteen years ago? Or thirteen years from now?

Some perspective on the state of the current presidential campaign: This past week, when the national political debate wasn’t focused on the origins of U.S. Olympic uniforms, it was dominated by questions about the date of Mitt Romney’s retirement. Barack Obama’s campaign says it was a decade ago; Romney says it was 13 years ago.

Who cares?

Thirteen years from now, in 2025, every penny the U.S. government collects will go to entitlement spending and interest on the debt. All of it. There will be no money for discretionary spending – no education spending, no infrastructure spending, no defense spending

Isn't this what we should be talking about? The United States is nearing $16 trillion in debt. Our annual deficits routinely top $1 trillion. The unemployment rate is going up – now at 8.2 percent. Economic growth is going in reverse – now at 1.9 percent. (And this is not to mention the serious foreign policy and national security concerns – state sponsorship of terrorism; Iranian nukes; Pakistani instability; a civil war in Syria; rising Islamism in the Middle East; Russian aggression; North Korean unpredictability; China.)

There are, of course, different ways to solve these problems. At some point in the next sixteen weeks maybe the country will hear about them.